So, what're you playing?

[Signe]

Still playing FF14 but about to start Sleeping Dogs which was the freebie from xbox Live this time.  Maybe.  I think I now have more xbox Live free games as I do bought games. 

[Miasma]

I liked sleeping dogs.  The main plot was garbage but the sandbox stuff was great, just like the grand theft auto it tries to emulate.

[KallDrexx]

Well that was a fairly uninspiring weekend.  Started it off by playing Realms of Ancient war, some budget ARPG.  The level design is terrible, the art direction is bad (hey lets have tan enemies on a desert backdrop), the loot didn't strike me as interesting and the combat was meh.  I played for a little over and an hour and got bored (and stuck due to their terrible level design and wasn't interested enough to figure out how to open some gate).

Then I tried playing The Last Remnant.  Played that for 4 hours before I dropped it.  The voice acting is holy crap bad, the teenage angst in the story didn't strike me at all (although maybe I'm just not in tune with jrpgs in general) and the combat system isn't very clear on why the hell it's roflstomping me after I get done with the tutorial missions.  Oh yeah and the camera is terribad. 

Next up, Castlevania. 

I have noticed that since amassing a huge steam backlog I have less tolerance for meh games.  I end up playing it for a half hour or so and finding reasons to set it as finished and try the next game.  I think I need to make my new years resolution to at least play a game for 3-4 hours before giving up on it.  Then again maybe I'm just playing terrible games and it has nothing to do with me knowing I actually have good games in the backlog.

[Soulflame]

Saints Row IV.  It's pure silly fun.  I want the black hole gun though, dammit.

Set up a Terraria server for the offspring, we're messing around on that.  I think buying them copies of Terraria during the sale is by far their favorite Christmas present.   

[CaptainNapkin]

With the 2 weeks of vacation I had to burn I actually made some headway through my backlog and completed a few games. Feeling pretty good about it since I'm normally the definition of gaming ADD.

Divinity 2 - I love the euro type rpgs, just can't get enough of them. Finally finished through both Ego Draconis and Flames of Vengeance. It had it's ups and downs but was the type of rpg ride I enjoy.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Finished. meh. Couple of moments I did curse out loud at high volume, but not a nail biter all the way through like I was expecting. Glad it ended when it did because I'd had enough of it.

King's Bounty: Armored Princess - Finally gave one of these turn based rpg games a real go after barely dabbling with HoMM in the past. Put 13 hours or so in before I was asking myself why I am playing it. It was fun at first but I just don't think it's my genre of game. I will give HoMM V a shot since I own that also, see if any different result.

Ass Creed IV - Pirates done right (to hell with the non-pirate parts)! Nuff said... I loved it and finally finished last night.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - Interactive story? Got it on sale but would have been worth it full price. Yeah it's short but they've done something here I haven't seen (felt?) with other games.

Company of Heroes - I never liked RTS games but gave this a go figuring less resource management... still too much for me. Not my genre, uninstalled.

Next up - finish Tiny Tina DLC in BL2, finish Metro 2033, finish Van Helsing. Also still playing World of Tanks, Guild Wars 2, Battlefield 4 as the mood hits. Maybe get back into Terraria before I dig into the backlog further.

[Strazos]

I thought you bought a laptop?

Yes, last year I bought a very nice $1k laptop - I'm talking about a new gaming desktop, as the current one is from 2008 or so.

[HaemishM]

In between bouts of Battlefiled 4 (finally finished the shittastic single player to get 2 of the 3 unlock weapons), I'm shuffling between Tropico 4 and Crusader Kings 2.

[Yegolev]

Borderlands 2 UHV mode.  Had four people for a bit but I didn't see a pearlescent.  OH WELL.  We got through Wildlife Preserves with minimal bitching on someone else's save file.  I think I'm just done with Firehawk Canyon or whatever it's called.

New Zelda-themed 3DS is serving up A Link Between Worlds, which I don't know if I like or not, and SMT IV, which I definitely do like with the power of a thousand boners.

[Khaldun]

Spent most of the evening playing Faster Than Light. Shit is hard, yo.

[Paelos]

I played one game of FTL so far and burned to death next a sun getting attacked by suicidal pirates.

The fuck.

[Rasix]

Finished Arcanum. It was worth playing, but I'm not going to put the experience up with the likes of Fallout or other great western RPG.  There's just honestly too much wrong with it.  At the end, I just wanted it to be done and was rewarded with only only a few short summations of what happened to different towns.  Of course, in true Arcanum style, there was still the combat music playing and a looping spell effect in the background while the narration was going on.  

Now I have to choose between Brothers, Shadowrun, State of Decay or GTA V.  Maybe some GW2 thrown in, but season 1 of WvW burned me out bad.

[Jeff Kelly]

Still playing a bit of Bravely Default but it's getting harder and harder to cope with all of the generic JRPG tropes and borderline underage porn-ness.

[Falconeer]

After finishing, and loving, Digital: a Love story, and Analogue: a Hate story, I am going through Hate Plus which is superior in all possible ways. This definitely rekindled my love for visual novels so I've already downloaded Don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story, Juniper Knot and Disfunctional Systems and plan on playing them over the next few weeks in between sessions of my extra-twitchy every day habits: Day Z and Smite.

[Ironwood]

Spent most of the evening playing Faster Than Light. Shit is hard, yo.

What's really annoying is that shit is hard yo on Easy setting.

 

[dusematic]

After a few playthroughs I got to the second stage of the final boss on easy and was massacred. I played a few more times and got back to that stage, only to be annihilated again.  I Googled the wiki and it seemed so difficult that I promptly gave up, also understanding there was an even more difficult 3rd stage lurking.  Best case scenario would be to beat the game on easy and be ridiculed by the hardcores.

[Phildo]

I've beaten it a few times, but mostly I just play it to unlock new ships and mess around with them.

[dusematic]

I've beaten it a few times, but mostly I just play it to unlock new ships and mess around with them.

Got any sage wisdom to pass down?

[Pennilenko]

Got any sage wisdom to pass down?

Suck less...

[Phildo]

Defender drones.

[DeathInABottle]

Boarding.  Boarding makes everything easy, since you receive far more scrap from killing the crew and taking the ship intact than from blowing it up.  Get a level 2 teleporter and a level 2 medbay and some Mantises and the game becomes trivial.

[Rishathra]

Got any sage wisdom to pass down?

The final boss is actually very easy, because it does the same thing every time, so you can plan for it over the course of a game. 

Boarding parties are just as useful as they are in the rest of the game.  First send a two man party to the missile launcher, then one to the ion cannon, then the beam.  At this point you can take your time, and you will want to on the first stage, to best set up the later ones.  If you had no luck obtaining a teleporter before getting to the boss, use bombs.  If you have ion bombs, hit the shields and then use your other stuff to disable the weapons while the shield is low/down.  Breach bombs are ideal.  If you ever see one in a shop or as loot, GET IT.  Just by itself it will make everything easier.

Once the situation is under control, carefully deploy a full strength boarding party around the ship to pick off their crew one by one.  Be careful where and when you drop them in, as they can run a chain on you, constantly sending crew to the med bay while keeping the pressure on your guys.  Crystal bombs or crew, or disabling the med bay are important.  Be careful to not kill all of the crew.  If that happens the ship's AI takes over, which means it auto repairs, bringing all the weapons back online, and it makes it that much harder to control the flow of the fight.  Ideally just leave the guy in the triple laser alone.  He's stuck there and can't repair anything else, and the laser is the one weapon that comes back for both of the later stages, even if you destroyed it previously.

Now to the second stage.  The very first priority is the same as before - get rid of that missile launcher.  Your second target should be drone control, otherwise a constant stream of boarding drones will tear your ship apart.  Defense drones are important here.  Mark 1 defense drones are actually preferable, both here and in the main game, because you want them shooting down projectiles specifically, and not wasting shots on lasers.  The good news is that if you've successfully eliminated the crew in the first stage, disabling these systems becomes that much easier and faster now.  The big threat in this stage is the drone swarm, which is dangerous but gives you a nice long tell before it activates, giving you plenty of time to prepare your LEVEL ONE cloak.  This is important.  Don't ever use higher level cloaks.  All they do is increase the cloak time, but leave the cooldown time unaffected, thus increasing the amount of time between cloak activations.  The rest of the stage handles the same as the first.

The third stage is actually super easy, as the boss only has two weapons now, only one of which you need to disable.  The special move is either a laser burst, which you handle the same as the drone swarm, or a super shield, which only delays its destruction.

Its important to keep in mind that even when everything goes well, you are still likely to take a small beating during the final battle.  So don't neglect the basics of damage control and crew management that you used in the rest of the game.  Just remember not to panic and you will make it through.

[dusematic]

Got any sage wisdom to pass down?

The final boss is actually very easy, because it does the same thing every time, so you can plan for it over the course of a game. 

Boarding parties are just as useful as they are in the rest of the game.  First send a two man party to the missile launcher, then one to the ion cannon, then the beam.  At this point you can take your time, and you will want to on the first stage, to best set up the later ones.  If you had no luck obtaining a teleporter before getting to the boss, use bombs.  If you have ion bombs, hit the shields and then use your other stuff to disable the weapons while the shield is low/down.  Breach bombs are ideal.  If you ever see one in a shop or as loot, GET IT.  Just by itself it will make everything easier.

Once the situation is under control, carefully deploy a full strength boarding party around the ship to pick off their crew one by one.  Be careful where and when you drop them in, as they can run a chain on you, constantly sending crew to the med bay while keeping the pressure on your guys.  Crystal bombs or crew, or disabling the med bay are important.  Be careful to not kill all of the crew.  If that happens the ship's AI takes over, which means it auto repairs, bringing all the weapons back online, and it makes it that much harder to control the flow of the fight.  Ideally just leave the guy in the triple laser alone.  He's stuck there and can't repair anything else, and the laser is the one weapon that comes back for both of the later stages, even if you destroyed it previously.

Now to the second stage.  The very first priority is the same as before - get rid of that missile launcher.  Your second target should be drone control, otherwise a constant stream of boarding drones will tear your ship apart.  Defense drones are important here.  Mark 1 defense drones are actually preferable, both here and in the main game, because you want them shooting down projectiles specifically, and not wasting shots on lasers.  The good news is that if you've successfully eliminated the crew in the first stage, disabling these systems becomes that much easier and faster now.  The big threat in this stage is the drone swarm, which is dangerous but gives you a nice long tell before it activates, giving you plenty of time to prepare your LEVEL ONE cloak.  This is important.  Don't ever use higher level cloaks.  All they do is increase the cloak time, but leave the cooldown time unaffected, thus increasing the amount of time between cloak activations.  The rest of the stage handles the same as the first.

The third stage is actually super easy, as the boss only has two weapons now, only one of which you need to disable.  The special move is either a laser burst, which you handle the same as the drone swarm, or a super shield, which only delays its destruction.

Its important to keep in mind that even when everything goes well, you are still likely to take a small beating during the final battle.  So don't neglect the basics of damage control and crew management that you used in the rest of the game.  Just remember not to panic and you will make it through.

Thanks.  Are boarding parties the only viable strategy for non-leets?

[Rishathra]

They are not the only strategy, but they are by far the easiest.  Also useful are the rapid fire ion cannons, breach bombs, fire beams/bombs, and the straightforward heavy firepower tactics.  The problem with all of these is that they are dependent on you getting lucky with that specific loot.  Getting mantises/rockmen and a teleporter is much less random, as well as just plainly more effective.

[Ironwood]

First step is upgrade your med bay.

[Rasix]

Finished Brothers. Interesting experience, but I'm glad I didn't spend a lot for it.  Really easy and super short. Game was really well done and delivered the story well.  Not any sort of GOTY material, but worth playing. 

[Phildo]

Has anyone messed around with boarding drones in FTL?

[koro]

Enemy ships love them.

I rarely ever see them for sale, and I usually can't afford them at the moment when I do.

[CaptainNapkin]

Finished Brothers. Interesting experience, but I'm glad I didn't spend a lot for it.  Really easy and super short. Game was really well done and delivered the story well.  Not any sort of GOTY material, but worth playing. 

I may play through this again to get the achievements I missed and see those additional pieces.

[Ironwood]

Has anyone messed around with boarding drones in FTL?

Fun.  But The power requirement is insane.

[HaemishM]

I loaded up Gone Home the other night. It might have been because I was on cold medication but the damn game made me dizzy. I couldn't play more than 10 minutes. I turned off motion blur and changed the field of view and nothing seemed to help. Anyone else having this problem? I don't usually have any issues with motion sickness or dizziness from FPS games.

[Goreschach]

I loaded up Gone Home the other night. It might have been because I was on cold medication but the damn game made me dizzy. I couldn't play more than 10 minutes. I turned off motion blur and changed the field of view and nothing seemed to help. Anyone else having this problem? I don't usually have any issues with motion sickness or dizziness from FPS games.

Probably just the medication, but could it have been an input lag problem? IIRC, that game had some problems with frame latency if your gpu custom configuration wasn't set up to correct it. I usually don't have any problems with motion sickness, but I've noticed it happening when motion on screen is far out of sync with what I'm controlling. The problem seems more prominent when I'm watching an LP and the cam is really shaky.

[Hawkbit]

I installed it on my wife's notebook and it had terrible motion blur that I took to be her onboard cards.  On my PC it was just fine, smooth as butter.

As an aside, I liked Gone Home so much I made her play it.  I think it's the first video game she's played since the 7th Guest.  She really enjoyed it!

[Rasix]

I loaded up Gone Home the other night. It might have been because I was on cold medication but the damn game made me dizzy. I couldn't play more than 10 minutes. I turned off motion blur and changed the field of view and nothing seemed to help. Anyone else having this problem? I don't usually have any issues with motion sickness or dizziness from FPS games.

I get bad motion sickness in greater than 50% of the FPS I play.  I didn't encounter any problems playing Gone Home and finished it in one sitting.  I'd guess the cold medicine wasn't helping.

I might actually have my wife play the game to see if she can lighten up a bit on gaming in general.  I already catch her enjoying playing Angry Birds Go with my son. 

[schild]

When I have 5 minutes, Dungeon of the Endless. When this game is actually done it's going to be super fucking awesome.

[Trippy]

I can't stand the "movement" in the game where you can only move from room to room in one big jump or am I missing something about the controls?